ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 269 



tional groups, animal and human, but between organisms within 

 the group, and not only between organisms but among cells in an 

 organism; that there is struggle between psychical elements 

 resulting in consciousness; struggle for mastery between thoughts; 

 struggle between industries; — struggle everywhere, but every- 

 where, also, alliance. He holds, moreover, that as no definite 

 point can be fixed at which the associational process begins, so 

 there is no known end until all humanity is organized (in alliance 

 with all useful animals under domestication) in a struggle against 

 inanimate nature and disuseful animals.^ 



Considering the different forms of struggle between living 

 beings, our author says that there are two fundamental divisions: 

 (i) those having as their purpose the assimilation more or less 

 complete of the elements of the conquered to the advantage of 

 the conqueror, — in a word, absorption, and (2) those having as 

 their purpose the removal of an obstacle in the way of the attain- 

 ment of the vital end of the individual, — in a word, elimination. 

 Each of these is shown to have two phases: attack and defense; 

 i. e., " living things struggle to absorb or eliminate others, on the 

 one hand, and on the other, to preserve themselves from absorp- 

 tion or elimination." ^ in the vegetable world, and between 

 herbivorous animals, the struggle results in elimination; between 

 animals and plants and between carnivorous animals it is chiefly 

 one of absorption. In general, plants are subordinated to animals, 

 weak animals to strong, and both plants and animals to man. 

 These biological processes have their analogue in the forms of 

 struggle between social groups.^ 



Struggle and alliance, according to Novicow, work in accord- 

 ance with the law of adaptation and will always be in evidence, for 

 absolute adjustment or equilibrium is impossible as the imiverse 

 is in a state of perpetual creation or transformation. 



In biological evolution we have passive physical adaptation as a 

 result of the impact of external nature on the organism and active 

 adaptation in a more or less telic effort put forth by a portion of 

 the organism * to facilitate adaptation. This he calls production. 

 Continuing he says: — 



^ Les Luttes, p. 30. * /jj^.^ p. 19. 3 /Jjj.^ pp. 21 f. 



* This theory, formulated by Lamarck, is now discredited. 



